“What made you think that?”
“Hell, don't kid your Uncle Joe. You two never last more than a few days. Look, the point is, you see Stella, what she wants. Could we use your place—for a little while?”
“What happened to your places—get dispossessed?” I asked, angry. I don't like anybody using my place, not even for parties—seemed to give the place a dirty atmosphere, and I mean dirty in every sense of the word. At the moment all I wanted was to listen to some good records, smoke my pipe, and read the Sunday paper.
“The kid's aunt and uncle came in from Harrisburg last night,” Joe said, running a comb through his thick, black-gray hair. “The yokels got their dates mixed, thought Walt was coming home this month, 'stead of next. Whole damn month off, but you see how it is, can't take doll there. Wouldn't even bother, only she's such a hot number. I know how you feel about... it... but you see her, ready to explode and...”
“All over my bed,” I said, shutting off the water, taking the beer bottles and glasses into the living room.
We sat around, making small talk over the beer, Joe waiting for me to make a move. Finally he said, “Beer—nothing to it. Georgie, you're a man of high influence, how about getting a bottle?”
“On Sunday morning?” I said. Then I got my hat and coat, decided I might as well let him have the place. I knew Joe and it would have been even more ridiculous for me to sit in the living room reading the Times while they were in the bedroom.
“What's Sunday morning? You're known at some of the bars around here, ought to get a bottle without much trouble,” Joe said quickly, winking at me.
“I'll try.”
“That's it. Take your time.”
I looked at my wrist watch. It was almost eleven. “I'll try—till noon.”
“Great,” Joe said.
I went out, wondering how I'd kill an hour. I had seven thousand in my pocket, had been maneuvered out of my own house, and although it was a mild sunny day, I was too tired and sleepy to walk. I knew I wouldn't sleep that night either—I have a complex about other people using my bed.
I stood in front of the house for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to drop down and see Flo, take a walk, or try the peace and quiet of the church across the street. I decided against all three. I was not only irritated at having been thrown oat of my house, but the money in my pocket gave me a restless sense of power—even though it wasn't mine. I walked to the corner of Park Avenue, then turned and went back to the house, rang Henderson's bell. When he buzzed the door open, I went upstairs. He was waiting inside his door, wearing a neat silk robe, and slippers.
He said hello as we shook hands.
“Thought I'd drop in for a few minutes,” I said.
“Fine, fine. Having breakfast. Join me?”
I shook my head, took off my coat and hat. Francis was a health bug. While I sat and watched him he ate a bowl of red jello in which I could see sardines, chopped celery, and string beans suspended. He was a little gray-haired man, eccentric as hell, but full of life for a person well over 70.
“Try some, you'll like this,” he said, pointing to the mess.
“I doubt if I would.”
“Utter nonsense. Consider the contradiction: You'd eat a sardine sandwich, a salad, and take jello for dessert—and think nothing of it. But mix them all together, as they will become inside your stomach, and you turn it down.”-
“I certainly do!”
He ate a few spoonfuls of the stuff, chewing it thoroughly. “Now isn't that stupid, afraid to look at what's in your belly? You're hiding your head in your intestines, to paraphrase the ostrich and the sand business.”
I didn't answer and he finished his 'meal' in silence. I glanced about the room. He had heavy, old-fashioned furniture, with a big bronze statute of Man o' War on the ugly old mahogany sideboard.
Henderson washed his food down with a glass of carrot juice, took the dishes into the kitchen. I picked up his Times, read the front page. “Going to have Joe and some of the boys in for poker this week?” he called out.
I said I guess so and went into the kitchen. He was pouring heavy sour cream and bits of chocolate-covered graham crackers into an electrical mixer.
“Any night you wish,” he said, starting the mixer, which didn't make much noise. “Be sure Joe is there. That Joe, drawing to straights and flushes—a slow living.”
Through the door I could see the statue of Man o' War. Francis F. Henderson was a quiet, reserved old man who lived off an income. He had no visitors or family, and played a capable, if cautious, game of poker, always quitting when he lost over eight dollars. He paid his rent promptly, saw all the Broadway plays, dressed plainly, and seemed to live pretty close to the cuff. I had an idea his income was about a hundred and fifty a month—he counted his pennies and played poker to win, not for the game.
Our relation was much more than a landlord-tenant affair, but we were never really friends. I thought there was always a certain reserve, almost a cunning aloofness, about him. I knew very little about him, he picked his words when he talked, except that he had worked for many years in a bank. Once when I asked about the statue of the horse that dominated the living room, he said, “The Man—great money horse. Did a lot for me.”
And once when there was a story in the papers about some bank teller arrested for dipping in the till and losing the money on the horses, we had been making small talk about it when Henderson looked at me with a faint smile, asked, “Ever think of the number of tellers that—eh—borrow funds and aren't caught? Of course you'll never read 'bout them in the papers. In the movies and papers the teller always bets on the wrong horse. That's ridiculous—some of them must win. Same percentage for tellers as for anybody else....”
That was as much as I knew about him, but I had a fairly clear picture of a bank teller following Man o' War's career, perhaps from the very first time he raced, betting ten bucks, then a hundred, then a thousand... then retiring from the bank. If he had an income of $150 a month and was getting 5 percent on his money, that meant about $40,000 stacked away. I wondered why he had stopped at that, but when I once saw him throw in a full house because he was pretty sure I had four of a kind—which I had—I could easily picture him stopping with forty grand, careful not to push his luck too far. Which is the smart way to play anything.
I went back to the living room, not wanting to see what came out of the mixer. I picked up the sports section and, as I was reading it, he came in, sat down with a contented sigh, asked, “How you doing with the horses?”
“Still a little ahead, I guess.”
He shook his head. “Hunch player—craziest creature on God's earth. By the way, I'm glad your wife is back.”
“Ex-wife, and she's gone,” I said, annoyed. My affairs were really in the street.
“Too bad.” He put on his old gold-frame glasses, wet a pencil, and started working on the cross-word puzzle. I turned to the theatrical section. Jose Limon was dancing on Wednesday, and Pearl Primus was giving a recital the following Sunday at the 92nd Street Y. I made a note to see both, felt a little better. I reached over to put the paper back on the table and felt the stiff envelope in my inside pocket. I took up the sports page again. Big Esther, a favorite, was running on Monday. On form, she couldn't lose. Seven thousand on the nose would almost be a sure three or four thousand for me.
I quickly picked up the book section. It was a wild idea. Anyway, I didn't know where to place that kind of a bet. I usually bet a dollar or two; it gave me a reason to look forward to the end of the afternoon.
I glanced at my watch. It was only eleven-twenty.
The old man looked up. “What's the plural of a land measure in five letters?”
“Miles? Acres?” Cross-words bored me.
“No, second letter is an V—if 'to be mistaken' in five letters is 'wrong.' Joe still downstairs with the girl?”
“What do you do, live by that window?”
Henderson chuckled. “Why not? She has an interesting body—although I suppose any woman's body is interesting, in the proper background. When you get my age, one of your pastimes is trying to decide if you had been a fool to be faithful to one woman. All those years—and chances—gone forever. What do you think a man hopes to find in a new woman—we're always searching, even though we know it will never be any different? Or am I talking like an old fool?”
“Everybody is constantly searching for something different—in friends, women, food, books—anything.”
He nodded. “But when you reach my age, one can be so damn objective about it all. Sometimes I wish I were a writer like you and...”
“I'm some writer,” I said, remembering the different tone to the word when Flo said it.
“... and be able to put down some of my thoughts. But then I realize that's only an old man's vanity. Or maybe a form of sour grapes, or going senile. I was thinking today, when I saw that woman with Joe, that she looked passionate. Yet, consider the fetish we make over passion, which is really only an odd name for selfishness and extreme personal satisfaction. Tell you, George, the more I ponder humans, less I think of them.”
“You ought to talk to my brother-in-law, Eddie, or ex-brother-in-law. He has only contempt for us humans,” I said, thinking. That's wrong, the kid really has a great love for humanity.
“The thin one who was wounded in the war?”
I said yes.
“Wars, hunger, depression—man's greatest insult to humanity. Wonder if I'm so morbid today because I'll probably die soon. I dreamt I was dying last night.”
“What talk.”
“Average life span is about 67, I believe. I've been on velvet for a lot of years now.”
“Nonsense, you'll live to be a hundred and seventy—way you live, no strain or worries.”
He stared at me with big eyes, almost like a kid, said gently, “Let's stop this kind of talk. Give me the racing page.”
I handed him the sports section and he studied it for a while. “There's a good nag in the third, tomorrow, Salad Days. Hasn't won in the last three times out, but I have a feeling they're holding him for a killing.”
“Why don't you play it—with money, instead of on paper?”
“Money is only paper,” Henderson said, chuckling at his little joke. “I can't risk the money. Besides, I'd have to leave the house before noon, and you know how I love to sleep late. Now let's see what else is good tomorrow....”
We talked about horses for a while. He was like Joe: knew the horse's mother, father, color of the jockey's hair, and everything except the number of times the jockey went to the bathroom. Joe didn't know the Preamble to the Constitution (who does?), but he could recite various details about horses for hours. Of course the horses kept him broke.
The fancy clock near the china closet chimed once and Henderson said, “Eleven-thirty. And I was about to go to the toilet. Wonderful to be like clockwork, especially at my age. You see the silly things one can be proud of in his old age.”
I grinned, wondering if I would be like that in another twenty-five years. I stood up. “Think I'll move on. I'll talk to Joe about a poker game, let you know.”
In the hall I touched the envelope in my pocket, to be sure it was there, then walked down and over to the French tea room on 75th and Lexington and had some pastry and a cup of coffee.
When I returned home, Joe and Stella were reading my Times over some beer. They looked quite domestic. “No bottle?” Joe asked as I came in.
“Sorry, I don't seem to be a man of distinction or influence.”
“Too bad, I was feeling ripe for a shot,” Joe said.
We sat around and I was waiting for them to leave, but Joe kept talking: small talk about some horribly clever things he'd heard in a bar, a couple of old dirty jokes, plus comments about a murder headline. Stella had Slob stretched across her lap, stroking his neck; both of them looking rather contented. After jabbering for what seemed like hours, Joe suddenly jumped to his feet in what I'm sure he thought was the “executive manner,” he actually practiced that sort of thing, said, “I'll get a bottle—afternoon is dying on us. I know a bartender... downtown... may take me an hour.” He turned to Stella. “You wait here, doll.”
“I haven't any place to go,” she said, yawning. She had quite a few gold fillings, and her teeth looked old.
“Okay, everybody stays pat till poppa returns,” Joe said, putting on his coat. When his back was to Stella, he winked at me.
When he left Stella said, “A big kid, lot of noise and wind.”
“One way of looking at him,” I said.
She was sprawled on a big leather chair Flo had bought in a second-hand store on 53rd Street for twenty dollars, and paid three hundred to have repaired and recovered. I had an idea it wouldn't take much coaxing to get Stella back in the bedroom, but I wasn't up to that. And with seven grand in my pocket I certainly wasn't fooling with any strays. She kept staring at me, an amused smile on her sensual lips. I asked if she wanted more beer and she said she did. When I bent over her to pick up her glass, she said, “George—you don't mind if I call you George?”
“Of course not.”
“You're handsome. Not really pretty but... well, distinctive. Yes, you're tall and lean and your face is long and thin, and that gray at the edge of your hair. You know, you look like a writer.”
I laughed and brought two glasses of beer. This was a great day for writers, it seemed, and the afternoon wasn't going to be too dull after all.
